Wrong Time, Wrong Place, Right Girl
by William Easley
Summary: When is a door not a door? Not part of my usual continuity, this one-shot was written for Wendip Week 2019, prompt 3: "We have each other now." Rated T for some salty language.


_I do not own the show GRAVITY FALLS or any of the characters; both are the property of the Walt Disney Company and of Alex Hirsch. I make no money from these stories but write just for fun and in the hope that other fans enjoy reading them. I will ask, please, do not copy my stories elsewhere on the Internet. I work hard on these, and they mean a lot to me. Thank you._

* * *

_This is not in my normal Gravity Falls continuity, but is a story written for Wendip Week 2019 from Prompt 3. "We have each other now."_

**Wrong Time, Wrong Place, Right Girl**

* * *

It was a million-to-one chance, but in Gravity Falls those are a dime a dozen.

And it started down in the bowels of the crashed spaceship, now buried beneath a tall round grassy hill in the center of the Valley. Dipper had recently returned from college—he'd graduated in just three years instead of the standard four. Mabel was still in school and would be for another year, but she had a reliable steady guy and no longer seemed to need Dipper around at every moment.

Wendy was still hanging out at the Shack—now twenty-three, with her hair worn a little shorter but the same old laid-back, fun-loving attitude. Dipper, at twenty, kept thinking this was the time, this was the time, but—well, he'd always needed a push in matters like this.

Unlike Mabel, he hadn't found a steady significant other in college. The genius-level girls seemed too studies-and-career driven, the bright attractive girls thought he was a nerd, the few girls who thought he was funny and appealing . . . weren't the same to him.

And besides, a torch carried long enough becomes an eternal flame.

When Ford asked him if he wanted to go explore a new area of the spaceship, he'd said, "Sure."

And since Mabel wasn't around that summer, he said to Wendy, diffidently, "I don't suppose you'd like to go visit an alien spacecraft with Ford and me."

"Sure, I'll go," Wendy said. "I'm off work today, anyways."

Ford was amenable. "Good," he said. "I'm a little too old to go sliding down ropes the way I used to. Wendy's strength will come in handy."

"Cool!" Wendy exclaimed when they climbed down through the hatch and approached the edge of a hundred-foot drop into darkness.

"At one time," Ford said, "I would have used a magnet gun to hang onto that shaft and let gravity pull me down. It's something of a thrill ride, but my bones are a little too brittle now, so—"

He unrolled a coiled-up rope ladder—except instead of rope, the rungs had been strung on an extremely light, thin, and strong chain of some unknown metal. "I'll go first."

He descended, and a few moments later, Dipper went over the edge. "Hang onto the rungs," he told Wendy. "Not like an ordinary wood or metal ladder. The rungs give you the best grip."

Dipper let himself down into darkness, and in a few seconds he felt the ladder twitch as Wendy, too, started the climb down. By the time Dipper was halfway, Ford had stepped off the bottom and had switched on a lantern that gave a greenish-yellow glow. "It isn't flooded," he called up.

Two summers earlier, after unusual drenching rains, Ford had found a foot of water standing down there. It had evaporated—mysteriously quickly, almost as though the ship had residual heat after uncounted millennia. Now only a thin layer of sediment crunched under Dipper's boots when he hopped off the ladder. He held it steady as Wendy came down. "OK, two more rungs, and then you're like eighteen inches off the ground," he said.

"Thanks, man." Wendy jumped and landed lightly. "So this thing's been here, like, forever?"

"For a minimum of thirty million years, I estimate," Ford said. "Come. Fiddleford and I discovered a closed hatch about three years back, and just this past May I discovered a way of unsealing it. Be careful! We're going into a completely uninvestigated sector of this craft."

At first Dipper couldn't see the hatch at all. It blended almost perfectly into one of the bulkheads of the ship, but then Ford lightly touched the wall there, there, up there, and over there—and the wall panel shimmered out of existence. "Fortunately, it won't close again until after we leave," Ford said.

"Fortunately?" Wendy asked.

"Well—I'm not absolutely certain that the combination would open the hatch from the other side. But so far, it has remained open until I returned to it and exited."

"Good to know," Dipper said.

They stepped through into a corridor that became a helical ramp leading downward. It was like a spiral staircase, but without the stairs. "There may be other hatchways along the walls," Ford told them. "I haven't found any so far, but it's odd that this ramp leads downward for about sixteen meters. I have no idea whether it's passing through an engine room, or storage areas, or something else. Here we are."

"Doesn't look all busted up," Wendy said.

That was true—the other areas of the ship clearly showed the effects of the ancient crash, with things broken and hanging, at least one dead alien body—exoskeleton, anyway—and dead machinery. This room looked as if it were constructed of stainless steel. The roof arched like that of a Quonset hut fifteen feet overhead, and the chamber itself stretched for three times that long, though slightly curved to the right.

Lights with sno visible source flickered on. Nowhere else on the ship was the power working. The light had a strange cast, as if shifted a little farther toward ultra-violet than the light of Earth. It shone on oblong rectangular pillars made of the same metal, chest-high to Dipper, lining both walls. "What are these?" he asked.

"Devices of unknown function," Ford said. "I have no idea why there's so little sign of deterioration in this chamber. Possibly we're in a stasis field that stops or slows the passage of time in some manner. It doesn't seem to work on us—if it did, it might be like the Medieval tales of Fairyland, in which a maiden or a young man might spend one night among the Fairies and discover on returning that a thousand years had passed in the world outside."

"Um, should we be messing with this junk?" Wendy asked.

"No!" Ford said quickly. "Don't touch anything. I plan to investigate thoroughly, but there's just a bare chance that some of this equipment might still be functional. The Shapeshifter's egg was contained in a miniature stasis device that preserved its life, and that—did not work out as well as I had hoped."

"Yeah, dude," Wendy said. "Tell us about it."

"Perhaps later," Ford said. His imperviousness to sarcasm would have shielded Chernobyl. "This way. I don't know for certain, but I think we may be in one section of a torus-shaped chamber that runs around the circumference of the operational center of the ship."

"Like a doughnut, huh?" Wendy asked.

"That's remarkably cogent," Ford agreed. "Yes, as if an enormous doughnut made of some unknown alloy had been sliced into six parts. There, up ahead."

Up ahead the passage ended in a blank wall.

"Is there another hidden hatchway there?" Dipper asked.

"Ah, you anticipate me!" Ford said. "Watch closely." He took out a kind of odd-looking flashlight and shone it at the wall. An eight-foot diameter hole, perfectly circular, shimmered into view, shining a swirling green. Ford switched off the light. Now the wall was simply a steel-like panel.

"What, is it like camouflaged?" Wendy asked.

"I believe this is its normal state. There appears to be a passageway here that is unconventional. Instead of a simple opening, the wall has something very much like a dimensional portal. Except my conjecture is that it merely leads to the next section of the torus." He opened his coat and took a coil of rope from around his waist. "This is where you two come in. I propose to tie this around myself, secure the free end, and trust you two to pull me out should I seem to be in difficulty."

"How are we supposed to secure it?" Dipper asked. "There's nothing to tie it to, except this pillars that you said not to touch!"

Ford took another piece of equipment out. "Magnet gun!" he said, sounding like Mabel announcing, "Grappling hook!" She still had it, by the way. That was, in fact, how she had first met her surprised boyfriend, one midnight at his window on the tenth floor of a huge dorm—long story, maybe another time.

Ford attached the magnet gun to a side wall, then secured the free end of the rope to a carabiner and clicked that to a ring on the gun. "That will hold up to three tons," he said. "I have twenty-five feet of rope, which will let me get approximately twelve feet inside the next part of the chamber. You two stand here and hold onto the rope. If I tug it twice, pull me out as fast as you can."

"Uh—couldn't you send a drone through first?" Dipper asked. "This could be, I don't know, where the aliens kept a zoo of dangerous predators, like the Shapeshifter. You might be walking into a cage!"

"A drone! That is a remarkably good idea!" Ford said. "And I think Fiddleford has something that could do the job. Let me go back to the surface and give him a call. If he has one, he can be here within half an hour or so."

"Shouldn't we all go?" Wendy asked.

"Just to make a telephone call? Hardly necessary," Ford said. "You young people stay here, touch nothing, and I'll return in a few minutes."

His footsteps echoed as he left the chamber and began to climb the spiral ramp.

"Well," Wendy said. "Here we are again, Dipper. Reminds me of the bunker."

"Yeah," he said.

She gave him a puzzled look. "What's wrong? Come on, man. We're still friends." She nudged him playfully.

"That's the trouble," he blurted.

Wendy waited. "Well? Tell me, don't leave me hanging," she said at last.

"Wendy—every time I see you—but we're just friends," Dipper said.

"Is that it?" she asked quietly. "You still want us to be, you know—romantic?"

"I know that ship has sailed," he muttered.

She reached out and took his hands in hers. "Don't be so hasty, man. You know now the age difference doesn't seem so much. We might, I don't know—give it a chance, maybe?"

His heart quickened. "You think?"

"Well, yeah. Of course, I know it's just a summer romance deal. In the fall, you'll go off back to—"

"No," he said. "I graduated. Ford wants me to stay here as his apprentice, and—and I'm gonna."

"So—we'd be like full-time boyfriend-girlfriend," Wendy said.

"Or, um, more than that," Dipper almost whispered.

Wendy chuckled. "Why, Mason Pines! Are you proposing to me?"

Dipper dropped her hands. "I knew you'd laugh at me." He turned away to hide his expression from her.

She put her hands on his shoulders. "I'm not laughing at you, Dipper. But ask me right if you're gonna."

"I don't have a ring or anything," he said.

"Doesn't matter. Ask me anyway."

He turned around, took off his cap, tossed it to the floor, and knelt at her feet, reaching for her hand. "Wendy Corduroy," he said, "will you—"

"Dipper! Your hat!"

He jerked his gaze down. His cap was slipping across the floor, toward the blank wall five feet away. And gaining speed.

He grabbed for it, caught it by the bill, and to his surprise felt it tugging him. He fell forward, moving faster and faster. Wendy grabbed his ankle. "Dude! Let go—"

Everything flashed green for a moment. And then it cleared.

"What happened?" Dipper asked. He had fallen on his belly three or four feet to—a sandy soil.

Wendy got up behind him and looked around. "Dip, I've a feeling we're not in Oregon anymore!"

Indeed it looked that way. They stood in a pleasant countryside. A pink sky arched overhead, with a small bluish sun shining warm. They stood beside a stream that flowed over round silver stones. Trees three hundred feet tall with neon-green leaves surrounded a sort of wild garden where strange fruits grew on vines and bushes. Something sort of like a bird, but with four wings, flew overhead, singing a musical call.

"It's not a hatch, it's a transporter!" Dipper said. "But—where is it?"

They could find no trace of whatever had pulled them here. They searched for it for days.

Well, for a certain definition of "day." The days here seemed to run about nineteen hours. On the other hand, they found the climate warm and comfortable, the air clean and refreshing, the water drinkable, the fruits tasty and without any ill effects.

"I'm so sorry, Wendy," Dipper said on the morning of the tenth day. "I got you into this. I messed up, like always."

"Don't be hard on yourself, Dip," Wendy told him. "You didn't know, man! Come on. I never gave you my answer. Looks like it's gotta be yes."

"Wendy, after I got you stranded like this—no way of getting back home—everyone we know lost to us—"

"We have each other now," Wendy said gently. "And Ford's probably still looking for us, and together you and me can either find some way back or some way to live here. Like Adam and Eve, you know. So yes, Dipper Pines, Wendy Corduroy will marry you. Only I guess we'll have to make up our own vows."

* * *

They had been living as man and wife for about three weeks when the two guys showed up. One wore a white lab coat and looked like a dissipated Einstein, the other was in his late teens and seemed, um, neurotic.

"Who are you?" Dipper asked, jumping up.

"Friend of your—" the older guy belched—"your uncle Stanford. He asked me to see if I could locate you two. Dippy and Wendy, right?"

"He-he-he said 'Dipper,' Rick," the younger one said.

"Yeah, whatever, put on some clothes for God's sake and let's get you home. You know what dimension that is? I bet you don't! You don't look smart enough to—"

"Forty-six apostrophe backslash!" Dipper yelled. "Don't look at my wife until she gets dressed!"

The white-haired guy took a slug from a flask. "You—you—think she's something special?" he asked. "I've seen women that—"

"Rick, now-now-now's not the time!" the younger guy said.

"Shut the hell up, Morty! Just shut the hell up!"

Wendy had pulled on jeans and shirt. Dipper, just in his undershorts, took one step and punched the old guy in the gut. Hard.

He fell to hands and knees and puked, then sprawled back to sit on his butt, wiping his mouth with the back of a hand. To Dipper's surprise, the old guy laughed. "You see, Morty? You see? That's the kind of apprentice Stanford has! He's got an apprentice with some guts! Guts, Morty! You know what guts are?"

"These?" Morty asked, kicking Rick in his.

It took the old guy a few minutes to get his breath back. "Oh, you're in for it now, Morty! You just wait. I gotta deal with these clowns first."

"Don't start anything," Dipper warned.

"Jesus, cool your freakin' jets, guy! OK, so you know something about dimensions, color me impressed, woohoo and et cetera. Oof. Let me just sit here for a minute. Morty, get these assholes home. And tell Stanford he owes me! And remember, I—" he belched—"I got a tracker on your ass, so don't try to run out on me!"

"C-come on, folks," the kid said. He led Wendy and Dipper a few yards away. Dipper had got his jeans and shirt on, but carried his shoes and socks. Wendy was wearing his trucker's cap.

"That guy's crazy," Wendy said.

From behind them the old guy yelled, "I heard that!"

Wendy didn't look back but gave him the finger. He laughed.

After they'd gone out of sight of the old man, the kid took out a strange device and projected a circle of swirling green light. "That-that-that's a portal," he said. "Take you anywhere and anytime you want to go. It's set-set to your dimension now, to the place where you came-came through to this-this world. Your uncle's right on the other s-side."

"Who is that guy back there?" Dipper asked. "He's rude, man!"

"Yeah, yeah, I know. See—see, he-he's my grandfather," the kid said miserably. "I-I-I've had about enough of him, but-but he won't leave me alone."

"Run away from home, man," Wendy said.

"He-he'd just find-find me and make my life hell."

Dipper said, "Listen, you really want to get away, see if you can find the Time Baby. Ask him for a job. For some reason I think you'd do real well in his Time Anomaly Paradox Avoidance Enforcement Squadron."

"You—you think?"

"Change your name, too," Wendy said. "Make it harder to find you."

"Try some bland name, nothing that sticks out," Dipper advised. "Blend in with the crowd."

"Um, thanks? B-Better hurry," the kid said. "I don't know how long this por-portal will last."

They stepped through.

"There you are!" Ford said. They stood in the arched, curved chamber again, with no sign of the old guy or the young one—or the green portal. "Thank heavens! You've been missing for hours!"

"Grunkle Ford!" Dipper said. "We've been gone for over a month and more!"

"It's not a hatch, dude," Wendy said. "It's a gateway to some other dimension. It's actually kinda nice, but—it's good to be back."

"You were gone for a month?" Ford asked. "Remarkable! I'd surmised the dimensionality angle, and I called a—well, 'friend' may not be the right word, a colleague of mine who has done extensive interdimensional tracking—"

"Yeah, he's a jerk and he says you owe him," Dipper said.

"Yes, yes, I'll do him a favor in return—you were away for more than a month. My word! Was it terrible?"

Wendy giggled. "Not as much as you'd think. The first time was a little hard, but after that—"

Dupper interrupted: "Grunkle Ford, let's cut this short for today, OK?"

"Tomorrow, actually," Ford said. "You left twenty-seven hours and some minutes ago. It's just after eleven on Tuesday now."

Dipper took Wendy's hand. "Good," he said. "The jewelry stores will be open."

* * *

The End


End file.
